Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
June 2015 Turkish general election
The Turkish general election of June 2015 took place on 7 June 2015 in all 85 electoral districts of Turkey to elect 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. This was the 24th general election in the history of the Turkish Republic, electing the country's 25th Parliament; the result was the first hung parliament since the 1999 general election. Unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition government resulted in a snap general election being called for November 2015; the Justice and Development Party, which had governed Turkey since 2002, lost its parliamentary majority and won 258 seats with 40.9% of the vote. The main opposition Republican People's Party fared worse than their 2011 result, won 132 seats with 25.0% of the vote. The Nationalist Movement Party had been projected to win over many disaffected voters from the AKP, its share of the vote increased, the party won 80 seats with 16.3% of the vote. The new Peoples' Democratic Party decided to contest the election as a party rather than fielding candidates as independents, despite concerns that it could have fallen below the 10% election threshold and lose all representation in Parliament.
The party fared better than expectations: it won 13.1% of the vote and took 80 seats, the same as the MHP. The potential for a hung parliament had been considered and predicted before the election so the country and politicians were better prepared for the constitutional process that would follow such a result. Campaigning before the election focused on a faltering economy, the political conflict between the government and the Gülen Movement, Turkey's involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Growing allegations of government corruption and authoritarianism originating from the 2013 corruption scandal and the 2013 Gezi Park protests were part of the issues and developments raised during the opposition campaigns; the vote was seen by some as a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's call for an executive presidency. Electoral fraud claims and political violence caused controversy in the run-up to the election. Several candidates and party offices were subject to politically motivated attacks, culminating in the death of four HDP supporters after two bombs exploded during a rally in Diyarbakır on 5 June.
The interference of President Erdoğan, accused of covertly campaigning for the AKP under the guise of'public opening' rallies, was controversial since the President is constitutionally required to exercise political neutrality. Despite fraud claims dating back to the hugely controversial 2014 local elections and numerous claims of misconduct on polling day, the election was praised by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for being well-organised and was declared free and fair by the European Parliament; the governing Justice and Development Party sought a fourth consecutive term in government. Its leader, Ahmet Davutoğlu, who had taken over from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in August 2014, sought a full term as Prime Minister of Turkey in his own right; the AKP's goal was to win more than 330 seats in order to have the right to put constitutional changes to a referendum, or more ideally 367 seats to bypass a referendum and change the constitution directly within parliament. The Republican People's Party aimed to surpass the 30% boundary and to form a government with the help of smaller parties or in its own right.
The CHP's leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had publicly stated that his party would target 35% of the vote, a rise of 9% from its 2011 result, in order to be able to form the next government. Popular support for the Nationalist Movement Party had surged during the 2014 local elections, it aimed to participate in a coalition government. However, several politicians from the CHP and MHP resigned in protest against their unrealistic electoral prospects, formed their own parties; the most prominent break-away party was the Anatolia Party formed by former CHP MP Emine Ülker Tarhan in November 2014. Other significant factors that opposition parties would need to overcome were issues such as media bias and electoral fraud, both of which increased in the preceding local and presidential elections; this election is the last election - presidential and general - scheduled in Turkey until 2019. Arguments as to whether this is by chance, or whether it was planned by the Justice and Development Party government when they proposed to reduce the parliamentary terms from five years to four in the 2007 constitutional referendum, are still ongoing.
Speculation as to what the AKP government will do during four years of electorally unchecked power should they win generated both favourable predictions and concerns. While four years without elections may allow the government to undertake widespread necessary economic reforms, critics of the AKP argue that it is an opportunity to further erode the diminishing checks and balances and separation of powers in the Turkish political and legal systems; the AKP support a presidential system, which would give greater powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The AKP government had proposed to hold an early general election in November 2014 if their candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won the 2014 presidential election due to opinion polls predicting a comfortable victory for Erdoğan in the first round; this would allow the AKP's new leader to seek an electoral mandate in their own right rather than serving the remainder of Erdoğan's term before seeking re-election. Although Erdoğan did win outright with 51.79% of the vote, his popular vote share was below what opinion polls predicted.
The presidential election results, according to several political commentators and journalists reduced the possibility of
Kars Province
Kars Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its closed border with the Republic of Armenia; the provincial capital is the city of Kars. The provinces of Ardahan and Iğdır were until the 1990s part of Kars Province. In ancient times, Kars was part of the province of Ararat in the Kingdom of Armenia; the first known people were the followers of Vanand, for whom Kars was their main settlement and fortress. In 928, Kars became the capital of Bagratid Armenia. In 968, the capital of Armenia was moved to Ani, but Kars remained the capital of the feudal principality of Vanand; the Seljuks relinquished direct control over Kars and it became a small emirate whose territory corresponded to that of Vanand, which bordered the created but larger Shaddadid emirate centered at Ani. The Kars emirate was a vassal of the Saltukids in Erzurum, whose forces were effective in opposing Georgian attempts at seizing Kars. On, in 1207, Georgian army commanded by David Soslan and brothers Ivane and Zakare Mkhargrzeli captured Kars after a long siege.
George IV son of Tamar, was appointed as a viceroy of Kars. It was conquered in 1242 by the Mongols. During the rule of the Persian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, the fortress of Kars, located in what was the eastern part of the city, fell into disrepair. However, as Kars was within a border region its defensive structures were renewed, they continued to advance to such a degree, that in the 19th century Kars was well known around the world as a castle; as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878, the province of Kars was incorporated into the Russian Empire as part of the militarily administered Kars Oblast and remained so until 1918. It was seen as a border province of a Russian Empire, seeking to expand yet further by the conquest of more territory belonging to the Ottoman Empire; the period from 1878 to 1918 was marked in the province of Kars by the settlement by the Russian authorities of a heterogeneous mix of Christian populations, including Armenians, Caucasus Greeks, Russians and smaller numbers from other Christian communities hitherto with little or no historical links to the region, such as ethnic Germans, Estonians and Russian sectarian communities such as Molokans and Doukhobors.
Many from the non-Russian Christian Orthodox communities had themselves fought in or collaborated with the Russian Imperial army to capture Kars province from the Muslim Ottomans. They saw this as a means of fulfilling their own ambitions to recapture Christian territory on the back of the Russian imperial enterprise. Kars province is divided into 8 districts, each named after the administrative center of the district: There are 383 villages in Kars. Kars has a wealth of wildlife, being documented by the Kars-Igdir Biodiversity Project run by the KuzeyDoga Society; the project has recorded 323 of Turkey's 468 bird species in the region. At least 223 of these occur at Lake Kuyucuk, the most important wetland in the region. Sarikamis Forests in the south harbor Indian wolves, Syrian brown bear, Caucasian lynx and other animals, Aras River wetlands comprise a key stop-over site for many migrating birds. Aras River Bird Research and Education Center at Yukari Ciyrikli village has recorded 228 bird species at this single location alone.
The economy of Kars Province is dominated by livestock breeding and forestry. 85 % of the active population in Kars Province are herders. 60% of the gross domestic income is received from those sectors. Industry and commerce is developing; the climate limits the cultivation of plants in the region. In Kağızman and Tuzluca, sugar beet and vetches are grown. Vegetable gardening and orchards are not developed. Wheat, cotton and in small quantity tobacco are grown in the province. Livestock breeding in the region is more important than agriculture. Grassland and the rich vegetation led to the development of livestock breeding; the grassland and meadows, which make out 70% of the area of Kars Province, are capable of providing at least ten times of the current livestock potential's breeding. Kars is the biggest cattle breeding province in Turkey, is the center of livestock trade. Efforts are being made to increase goose breeding, special to Kars region. Aside its meat taking a special place in the Kars cuisine, goose liver and down feather started to be exported to Europe.
Kars Province is not abundant with woods. Only 4% of the province area is covered with woods. Scots Pine and alder are the tree species most found in the woods of Kars. Around 15,000 m3 timber is produced by logging in forestry. Ore beds of rock salt, asbestos, magnesite and perlite are explored, only rock salt is mined. Main industrial plants in Kars are of meat processing, livestock feed processing, yarn, footwear and brick factories. Among the most famous food products special to Kars region are Kars honey, Kars Kasseri, Kars Gruyère cheese, which tastes like Swiss Emmental cheese, Kars style roasted goose. Kars contains numerous monuments, the most notable being the ruined Armenian city of Ani and the 9th century Church of the Apostles. Kars was the setting for the popular n
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated AK Parti in Turkish, is a conservative political party in Turkey. Developed from the conservative tradition of Turkey's Ottoman past and its Islamic identity, the party is the largest in Turkey. Founded in 2001 by members of a number of existing conservative parties, the party has won pluralities in the six most recent legislative elections, those of 2002, 2007, 2011, June 2015, November 2015, 2018; the party held a majority of seats for 13 years, but lost it in June 2015, only to regain it in the snap election of November 2015 but lose it again in 2018. Its electoral success has been mirrored in the three local elections held since the party's establishment, coming first in 2004, 2009 and 2014 respectively; the current party leader is the incumbent President of Turkey. Shortly after formation, the AKP portrayed itself as a pro-Western and pro-American party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocated a liberal market economy including Turkish membership in the European Union.
The party had for a long time been supported by the Cemaat Movement of exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose influence in the judiciary has helped to weaken the opposition against the AKP. The party was an observer in the center-right European People's Party between 2005 and 2013 and a member of the eurosceptic Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe from 2013 to 2018. Controversies over whether the party remains committed to secular principles enshrined in the Turkish constitution despite their Islamist origins have dominated Turkish politics since 2002 and has resulted in numerous unsuccessful closure cases. Nationwide protests broke out against the alleged authoritarianism of the AKP in 2013, with the party's heavy-handed response receiving international condemnation and stalling the party's once championed EU accession negotiations. Since the party has brought about tighter regulations on internet use and alcohol consumption, having temporarily blocked access to Twitter and YouTube in March 2014.
After the government corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers in 2013, the party has been accused of crony capitalism. The AKP favours a strong centralized leadership, having long advocated a presidential system of government and reduced the number of elected local government positions in 2013; the AKP was established by a wide range of politicians of various political parties and a number of new politicians. The core of the party was formed from the reformist faction of the Islamist Virtue Party, including people such as Abdullah Gül, Bülent Arınç. A second founding group consisted of members of the social conservative Motherland Party, close to Turgut Özal, such as Cemil Çiçek and Abdülkadir Aksu; some members of the True Path Party, such as Hüseyin Çelik and Köksal Toptan, joined the AKP. Some members, such as Kürşad Tüzmen had nationalist or Ertuğrul Günay, had center-left backgrounds while representatives of the nascent'Muslim left' current were excluded. In addition a large number of people joined a political party for the first time, such as Ali Babacan, Selma Aliye Kavaf, Egemen Bağış and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
All of these people joined Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to found the new party. Although the party is described as an Islamist party in some media, party officials reject those claims. According to former minister Hüseyin Çelik, "In the Western press, when the AKP administration – the ruling party of the Turkish Republic – is being named most of the time'Islamic,"Islamist,"mildly Islamist,"Islamic-oriented,"Islamic-based' or'with an Islamic agenda,' and similar language is being used; these characterizations do not reflect the truth, they sadden us." Çelik added, "The AKP is a conservative democratic party. The AKP's conservatism is limited to moral and social issues." In a separate speech made in 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated, "We are not an Islamic party, we refuse labels such as Muslim-democrat." Erdoğan went on to say that the AKP's agenda is limited to "conservative democracy". The party's foreign policy has been described as Neo-Ottomanist, an ideology that promotes renewed Turkish political engagement in the former territories of its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire.
However, the party's leadership has rejected this label. In 2005, the party was granted observer membership in the European People's Party. In November 2013, the party left the EPP to join the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists instead; this move was attributed to the AKP's disappointment not to be granted full membership in the EPP, while it was admitted as a full member of the AECR. It drew criticism in both national and European discourses, as the driving force of Turkey's aspirations to become a member of the European Union decided to join a eurosceptic alliance, abandoning the more influential pro-European EPP, feeding suspicions that AKP wants to join a watered down, not a integrated EU; the Justice and Development Party has faced two closure cases in its history. Just 10 days before the national elections of 2002, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoğlu, asked the Turkish constitutional court to close the Justice and Development Party, leading in the polls at that time.
The chief prosecutor charged the Development Party with abusing the law and justice. He based his case on the fact that the party's leader had been banned from political life for reading an Islamist poem, thus the party had no standing in elections; the European Commission had criticised Turkey for banning the party's leader
November 2015 Turkish general election
The Turkish general election of November 2015 was held on 1 November 2015 throughout the 85 electoral districts of Turkey to elect 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. It was the 25th general election in the History of the Republic of Turkey and elected the country's 26th Parliament; the election resulted in the Justice and Development Party regaining a Parliamentary majority following a'shock' victory, having lost it five months earlier in the June 2015 general election. The snap election was called by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 24 August 2015 after the June election resulted in a hung parliament and coalition negotiations broke down. Although the election, dubbed as a're-run' of the inconclusive June election by President Erdoğan, was the 7th early election in the history of Turkish politics, it was the first to be overseen by an interim election government; the election rendered the 25th Parliament of Turkey, elected in June, the shortest in the Grand National Assembly's history, lasting for just five months and being in session for a total of 33 hours.
The election took place amid security concerns after ceasefire negotiations between the government and Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels collapsed in July, causing a resumption in separatist conflict in the predominantly Kurdish south-east of the country. Close to 150 security personnel lost their lives in the ensuing conflict, causing tensions between Turkish and Kurdish nationalists and raising security concerns over whether an election could have been peacefully conducted in the south-east, where conditions were described as a'worsening bloodshed' by observers. Critics accused the government of deliberately sparking the conflict in order to win back votes it had lost to the Nationalist Movement Party and decrease the turnout in Peoples' Democratic Party strongholds; the election was preceded by the deadliest terrorist attack in Turkey's modern history, after two suicide bombers killed 102 people attending a peace rally in central Ankara. Numerous political parties, notably the main opposition Republican People's Party, ended up either cancelling or toning down their election campaigns following the attack.
Fehmi Demir, the leader of the Rights and Freedoms Party, was killed in a traffic accident six days before the election. Amid speculation that the election would result in a second hung parliament and commentators were found to have drastically underestimated the AKP vote, which bore resemblance to their record 2011 election victory. With 49.5% of the vote and 317 seats, the party won a comfortable majority of 84, while the CHP retained its main opposition status with 134 seats and 25.4% of the vote. The results were seen as a'shock' win for the AKP and was hailed as a massive personal victory for President Erdoğan; the MHP and the HDP both saw decreases in support, with both hovering dangerously close to the 10% election threshold needed to win seats. The MHP, seen to have been punished for its perceivably unconstructive stance since June, halved their parliamentary representation from 80 to 40 and won 11.9% of the vote, while the HDP came third in terms of seats with 59 MPs despite coming fourth in terms of votes with 10.7%.
The elections were broadly regarded as free and fair but were overshadowed by the violence between the Turkish state and the PKK, with concern that the electoral victory may embolden President Erdoğan to further crackdown upon free speech. Turkish politics is dominated by four main parties; the largest is the right-wing Islamist rooted Justice and Development Party, described as a conservative democratic party and has been in power since winning a landslide victory in the 2002 general election. The main opposition Republican People's Party has remained as the second largest party since 2002, observing a centre-left social democratic and Kemalist ideology; the Nationalist Movement Party observes a Turkish nationalist ideology and has maintained third party status in Parliament since the 2007 general election. The Peoples' Democratic Party was founded in 2012 and originates from the left-wing Peoples' Democratic Congress, it is seen as a pro-Kurdish party and maintains an ideology of minority rights and anti-capitalism.
All four parties surpassed the 10% election threshold in the June 2015 general election and won representation in Parliament, with no party winning a majority to govern alone. Smaller parties include the Islamist Felicity Party, the left-wing nationalist Patriotic Party, the centrist Independent Turkey Party and the social democratic Democratic Left Party, though neither party managed to command a significant amount of support in previous elections. Elections were held on 7 June 2015 in order to elect the 25th Parliament of Turkey, following the expiry of the 24th Parliament's four-year term. Suffering a 9% decrease in their vote share, the governing AKP won 258 out of the 550 seats, 18 seats short of a majority; the CHP suffered a slight decrease in their vote and seat share, winning 132 seats. The MHP and the HDP both won 80 seats, with the HDP managing to surpass the 10% election threshold despite concerns that it could fall below the boundary; the election resulted in the first hung parliament since the 1999 general election.
The election result raised speculation over an early general election. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited AKP leader Ahmet Davutoğlu to form a government on 9 July 2015, by virtue of leading the largest party in Parliament. If a government was not formed within 45 days Erdoğan reserved the right to either extend the 45-day period or call an early election. After being asked to form a government by virtue of leading the largest party
Republican People's Party (Turkey)
The Republican People's Party is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party in the country, is the main opposition in the Grand National Assembly; the CHP describes itself as "a modern social democratic party, faithful to the founding principles and values of the Republic of Turkey". The party is cited as "the founding party of modern Turkey", its logo consists of the Six Arrows, which represent the foundational principles of Kemalism: republicanism, statism, populism and reformism. The political party was established during the Sivas Congress in 1919 as a union of resistance groups against the Greek invasion of Anatolia; the union represented Turkish people as a unified front during the Turkish War of Independence. On 9 September 1923, the "People's Party" declared itself to be a political organization and on 29 October 1923, announced the establishment of the Turkish Republic. On 10 November 1924, the People's Party renamed itself the "Republican People's Party" as Turkey moved into a one-party period.
During the one-party period, the CHP became the major political organisation of a one-party state. However, CHP faced two opposition parties during this period, both established upon the request of CHP leader and founder of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in efforts to kick-start a multi-party democracy in Turkey; the first one was the Progressive Republican Party established in 1924 by famous generals such as Kazım Karabekir and Ali Fuat Cebesoy, who both served during the Turkish War of Independence, the second was the Liberal Republican Party founded by Ali Fethi Okyar in 1930. Both parties, were banned within a few months of their establishment by the state for veering too to Islamism; this experience was followed by the founding of the National Development Party by Nuri Demirağ in 1945. The current structure of the party was established within the transition to the multi-party period. After World War II, the leader of the CHP, İsmet İnönü, introduced democratic elections to Turkish society.
There was widespread dissatisfaction with the CHP in the four years after its victory at the first multi-party general election. The party lost the following elections in 1950, Celâl Bayar replaced İnönü as president. During the interim "multi-party periods" in between the military coups of 1960, 1971, 1980, the CHP was regarded as being social-democratic, civic nationalist and secularist/laicist; the CHP, along with all other political parties of the time, was suspended for a brief period by the military junta of 1980. An inheritor party which still participates in Turkish democratic life as a separate party was established in 1984 by the name of the Democratic Left Party, created by the former leader of the CHP, Bülent Ecevit; the CHP was re-established with its original name on 9 September 1992, with the participation of a majority of its members from the pre-1980 period. The Republican People's Party is a centre-left political party with traditional ties to the middle and upper-middle classes such as white-collar workers, retired generals, government bureaucrats, college students, left-leaning intellectuals and labour unions such as DİSK.
The loose relationship between CHP and some trade unions, business chambers and most non-governmental organisations has alienated many voters. The distance between the party administration and many leftist grassroots left oriented Kurdish voters, contributed to the party's shift away from the political left. Despite heavy criticism from liberal and libertarian socialist interest groups, the CHP still holds a significant position in the Socialist International and is an associate member of the Party of European Socialists; the CHP urged the Socialist International to accept the Republican Turkish Party of Northern Cyprus as an observer member. At the 2007 general election, CHP ran in alliance with the Democratic Left Party; the CHP suffered a heavy defeat. The CHP, DSP, YTP combined received 21.77% of the votes in the 2002. The party finished first only in the three provinces of Edirne, Tekirdağ, Kırklareli, as well as two provinces on the Aegean coast which were İzmir and Muğla. With these results, 112 candidates were elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey from the CHP electoral sheet, compared to 178 in 2002.
The CHP increased its vote share from 20.9% to 23.1% in the 2009 local elections. The party gained considerable ground by winning over Antalya, Zonguldak, Tekirdağ, Aydın, despite losing Trabzon municipality. In 20 provinces of Turkey, the party received less than 3% of the votes. At the general elections held in June 2011, the CHP was able to increase its number and percentage of voters to 11,155,972 and 25.98% respectively. At the 2014 local elections, the CHP's total votes went down to 10,835,876 yet it received 26.34% of the overall vote. CHP-backed candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu was able to get only 38.44% of the votes during the presidential election five months later. In the June 2015 general elections where the ruling AKP lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, the party received 11,518,139 votes, or 24.95%. A coalition government was not formed and snap elections were held in November 2015, where the CHP received 12,111,812 votes, or 25.32%. During the Turkish War of Independence, 1919–1923, the parliament in Ankara was composed of different types of deputies.
To have harmony among his followers, Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues formed Müdafaa-ı Hukuk grubu. The opposition to Mustafa Kemal or to the commis
Rural area
In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area, located outside towns and cities. The Health Resources and Services Administration of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services defines the word rural as encompassing "...all population and territory not included within an urban area. Whatever is not urban is considered rural."Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas are rural, as are other types of areas such as forest. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for administrative purposes. In Canada, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines a "predominantly rural region" as having more than 50% of the population living in rural communities where a "rural community" has a population density less than 150 people per square kilometre. In Canada, the census division has been used to represent "regions" and census consolidated sub-divisions have been used to represent "communities". Intermediate regions have 15 to 49 percent of their population living in a rural community.
Predominantly urban regions have less than 15 percent of their population living in a rural community. Predominantly rural regions are classified as rural metro-adjacent, rural non-metro-adjacent and rural northern, following Ehrensaft and Beeman. Rural metro-adjacent regions are predominantly rural census divisions which are adjacent to metropolitan centres while rural non-metro-adjacent regions are those predominantly rural census divisions which are not adjacent to metropolitan centres. Rural northern regions are predominantly rural census divisions that are found either or above the following lines of parallel in each province: Newfoundland and Labrador, 50th; as well, rural northern regions encompass all of Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Statistics Canada defines rural for their population counts; this definition has changed over time. It has referred to the population living outside settlements of 1,000 or fewer inhabitants; the current definition states that census rural is the population outside settlements with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and a population density below 400 people per square kilometre.
84% of the United States' inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, but cities occupy only 10 percent of the country. Rural areas occupy the remaining 90 percent; the U. S. Census Bureau, the USDA's Economic Research Service, the Office of Management and Budget have come together to help define rural areas. United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau definitions, which are based on population density, defines rural areas as all territory outside Census Bureau-defined urbanized areas and urban clusters. An urbanized area consists of a central surrounding areas whose population is greater than 50,000, they may not contain individual cities with 50,000 or more. Thus, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents. USDA The USDA's Office of Rural Development may define rural by various population thresholds; the 2002 farm bill defined rural and rural area as any area other than a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants, the urbanized areas contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town.
The rural-urban continuum codes, urban influence code, rural county typology codes developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service allow researchers to break out the standard metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas into smaller residential groups. For example, a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population. OMB: Under the Core Based Statistical Areas used by the OMB, a metropolitan county, or Metropolitan Statistical Area, consists of central counties with one or more urbanized areas and outlying counties that are economically tied to the core counties as measured by worker commuting data. Non-metro counties are outside the boundaries of metro areas and are further subdivided into Micropolitan Statistical Areas centered on urban clusters of 10,000–50,000 residents, all remaining non-core counties. In 2014, the USDA updated their rural / non-rural area definitions based on the 2010 Census counts.
National Center for Education Statistics revised its definition of rural schools in 2006 after working with the Census Bureau to create a new locale classification system to capitalize on improved geocoding technology. Rural health definitions can be different for establishing under-served areas or health care accessibility in rural areas of the United States. According to the handbook, Definitions of Rural: A Handbook for Health Policy Makers and Researchers, "Residents of metropolitan counties are thought to have easy access to the concentrated health services of the county's central areas. However, some metropolitan counties are so large that t
